"While some in the industry wondered if the end consumer would buy a 1TB drive, already some 10 percent of 3.5-inch hard drive sales are at the 1TB level or higher, serving demand from video applications and expanding consumer media libraries," said Mark Geenen, President of Trend Focus. "The 2TB hard drives will continue to satisfy end user's insatiable desire to store more data on ever larger hard drives."

WD Caviar Green is one of the most successful product lines in the company's recent history with its third-generation GreenPower technology, now providing 2TB of proven reliable storage for today's high-resolution files and graphics. WD Caviar Green drives are designed for use in USB/FireWire/eSATA external hard drives, desktop computers, workstations, and desktop RAID environments.

"Saving power without sacrificing storage capacity is what consumers want, and what many businesses are requiring today. With the launch of the new WD Caviar Green 2TB hard drive, customers receive the additional capacities needed to operate today's highly advanced programs and high-resolution digital files while using less power than typical drives with similar performance and capacities," said Jim Morris, WD senior vice president and general manager of client systems.

Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture, Cool, Quiet Hard Drives
A number of advanced technologies enable the speed, capacity and performance of WD's Caviar Green 1.5TB and 2TB hard drives. Those include: StableTrac, which secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking during read and write operations1; IntelliPower, which fine-tunes the balance of spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance; IntelliSeek, which calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise, and vibration; and NoTouch ramp load technology, which is designed to ensure the recording head never touches the disk media resulting in significantly less wear to the recording head and media, as well as better drive protection while in transit.

Availability and Pricing
The WD Caviar Green 2 TB is available at select resellers and distributors. MSRP for the WD Caviar Green 2TB hard drives (model WD20EADS) is $299.00 USD. More information about WD Caviar Green desktop drives may be found on the company's Web site at http://wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=576.Source: WesternDigital

Why? These drives are great for storage, few people require a lot of high speed storage. Higher speed than offered here anyway. Get some Raptor, SSD, or whatever for Windows, use these disks for storage.

Read any of the reviews on the GP series, that is how they "save power", they only spin at 5400RPM. It was the only way WD could figure out how to get the platters so dense. It is easier to make higher capacity drives if they are running slower, that is why all the high capacity laptop drives are 5400RPM also. The only saving grace is that the areal density is so high, they at least perform decently, but I would take a real 7200RPM drive over this anyday. But for most storage tasks, the speed isn't really an issue.

by: DanTheBanjomanWhy? These drives are great for storage, few people require a lot of high speed storage. Higher speed than offered here anyway. Get some Raptor, SSD, or whatever for Windows, use these disks for storage.

by: DanTheBanjomanI highly doubt average Joe with his single drive will buy this. They'll just buy a cheap 500GB-1TB drive for

The 2TB drives, maybe that is more true, but the rest of the Green line, like the 1TB model not so much. Though I wouldn't put it past the average joe to just buy a single big drive like this really, even the 2TB model.

by: Evo85These are "Green" drives and see them more aimed at the corporate market. Where speed isnt as great of an issue.

These definitely aren't Corporate drives, and speed usually is an issue in the corporate setting, though RAID is usually implemented in the Corporate world. These in RAID wouldn't have speed issue. As it is, these don't have a huge speed hit from being 5400RPM, but I still wish they were 7200RPM instead.

by: newtekie1It is easier to make higher capacity drives if they are running slower, that is why all the high capacity laptop drives are 5400RPM also.

Ugh, that's simply not true. Spindle speed and platter density are orthogonal parameters, and I can't figure out an example that could support such a strange claim. The second-biggest drive now, the 1,5 TB Barracuda 7200.11 is running comfortably at 7200RPM, without Seagate having to release a 5400RPM "trial" drive. There are 500GB laptop drives spinning at 7200RPM, too - and this is the highest capacity I've seen for a 2,5" drive so far. Of course, it is true in general that lower speeds are easier to manage, but this hasn't prevented manufacturers to release high capcity drives with high spindle speeds so far. It won't be too long until WD releases a Black edition of the drive, I guess the reasons for releasing a Green drive first are not purely technical.

I would probably go for 2 x 1.5TB Seagates, but I hate Seagates, so I guess I would pick this, even though 5400rpm would only be good for storage (if the price goes down, I will get it to have alot of storage!)

by: newtekie1Read any of the reviews on the GP series, that is how they "save power", they only spin at 5400RPM. It was the only way WD could figure out how to get the platters so dense. It is easier to make higher capacity drives if they are running slower, that is why all the high capacity laptop drives are 5400RPM also. The only saving grace is that the areal density is so high, they at least perform decently, but I would take a real 7200RPM drive over this anyday. But for most storage tasks, the speed isn't really an issue.

If it's anything like other Caviar Greens it's NOT 5400rpm. It runs at something between 5400rpm and 7200rpm. Anyway just look at the reviews of other Greens they are as fast as any other HDD and faster than the high density (>1TB) Barracudas most of the times, sometimes even the Spinpoint F1 and it's even close to the Raptors, so I don't see why conplain about the rpms when the drive is faster than most other big HDDs.

And BTW it runs at something close to 5400rpm to save power, NOT because it's the only way they can achieve higher densities.

by: nppI guess the reasons for releasing a Green drive first are not purely technical.

There where rumors that WD might only create Caviar Greens in the future, because are better for the environment and not worse in any aspect than other HDDs, so why not? It might not be that they have released the Green one first, maybe there will not be more, except Velociraptors of course.

by: DarkMatterIf it's anything like other Caviar Greens it's NOT 5400rpm. It runs at something between 5400rpm and 7200rpm. Anyway just look at the reviews of other Greens they are as fast as any other HDD and faster than the high density (>1TB) Barracudas most of the times, sometimes even the Spinpoint F1 and it's even close to the Raptors, so I don't see why conplain about the rpms when the drive is faster than most other big HDDs.

I have long awaited the 2Tb era. Now that is here i cannot ignore it. Maybe Green isnt exactly my colour but for storage purpose 5,400 - 7,200 rpm is fine for me. Actually it should be fine for anyone that plans to utilize the 2Tb for its intended purpose ( Storage ).

Now awaiting the price drop and a Black edition and consider my systems upgraded!
( Can never have enough space )

Oh i forgot . . . For all my little biatches complaining about the speed, please dont forget that there are also products out there that address your issue. Im not talking about a shotgun to your head, im talking about the not so long life SSD's.

by: REVHEADWouldnt want to be around when some ones 2tb drive fails and thjey lose all there data haha, thats a lot of data.

Im sure that if it was important data it would be backed up elsewhere. These massive storage capacity hard disk drives are JUST that.

I too would opt for a Western Digital hard disk drive over a Seagate. Im actually updating my NAS drives to the 2TB WD's when they are made available in my area.

BTW, the movies and music i watch and listen too on the ' slower ' hard drives dont play faster or better on ' faster ' hard disk drives. As for the program setup files i keep on these massive storage drives, well, who REALLY benches install times of programs, and if they do . . . Who REALLY cares if the game or application took an extra 3 seconds to install.